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Epilogue

Epilogue

March 12th, 2158

"Jean! Jean, wake up, come on, wake up!"

Even in Jean's groggy post hibernation state, he knew who that voice belonged to.

"Jean," the voice continued now becoming aggravated.

Jean felt a slap across his face. His dulled nerves registered the pain, even lacking the sting.

"Jean, wake up old man. Open you eyes!"

Jean mustered enough will power to slowly open his eyes. Though blurred vision, Jean made out the electric blue eyes of Fiona.

"Jean, do you hear me? Nod your head if you understand," Fiona said.

With the same amount of effort it took to to open his eyes, Jean slowly rocked his head forward. He failed to bring his head back to its original position.

Small hands gripped the sides of Jean's head and brought it back so he was once again looking directly at Fiona.

"I'll take that as a yes," Fiona said a little sourly. "You wanted us to wake you when we were within range of any communication with Earth. We will be in range in approximately six hours. You have been removed from hibernation. Go ahead and sleep of the hibernation meds, I will be back to wake you when we reach the communication zone."

Fiona turned and floated out of the room.

Jean allowed his eyes to close again, and before he was aware he was in deep sleep, this time without the hibernation medications keeping him under.

_____

"Wake up!"

Jean felt the full force of the slap across his cheek. The slap was probably much harder than it needed to be, but had the desired effect.

Jean's eyes shot open from the pain. Floating in front of him was Fiona with a smug smile on her face. She probably had enjoyed that slap a little too much.

"We are about half an hour from the communication zone," Fiona said.

Without waiting for a response she turned her body and glided out of the door to the small room.

Jean, still feeling groggy, slid his hand up the side of the g bag. It opened and he pulled himself free. The slap had jolted his system, and woken him, but it would take him a while to fully recover from the hibernation.

Once completely free from the g bag, Jean stretched and loosened his muscles. The Erma's Revenge was not fully equipped with the highest tech available for hibernation. High tech versions would have muscle stimulants that would keep his muscles active to keep them from atrophying. Jean's muscles, however, had atrophied, and he was now weak because of it. It would probably take him several months to reach to level he was at when he and Brit had been picked up.

Once he was satisfied that his body was still functioning correctly, he pushed himself off the wall and left the room. He floated down the hall and into the cockpit were Fiona was sitting casually at the helm. Brit was sitting in the same seat he had been in the last time he entered the cockpit.

Brit, being and NBS, didn't need to sleep like a human did. They did require down time, like most all machines. In this time, only a few systems continued to run. The nervous system of the NBS continued while sleeping but at a lower level. It was probably more accurate to say that when an NBS slept, it was closer to actual natural hibernation than what Jean just woke up from.

"You can check your messages there," Fiona said pointing to a terminal next to Brit.

Jean floated to the terminal and strapped himself into the seat. Activating the terminal, Jean attempted to open communications. An Error message popped up stating "No Networks or Systems currently detected."